A British composer's ambitious quest to premier a requiem in the highly atmospheric Abney Park cemetery by lantern light.

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Missing Cat

Up betimes and to a recording studio in Willesden, where I’m taking photographs of a string orchestra playing one of Fiona’s compositions. It’s a wonderful piece; sobbingly moving, highly visual and incredibly subtly scored. The players are daemons. I’m curled up on a sofa allowing the experience to drift over me like a mist rolling down from the Yorkshire Moors! This ought to spur her on to write more original music. She’s a deeply talented composer with a distinctive voice; and a Northamptonian to boot!

Last night I introduced the Choir Invisible to sections of The Book of Hope. They were enthusiastic and a joy to work with. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how the project develops with them.

It’s been a week of hugely differing musical experiences. Nunsense on Monday night was the opposite end of the spectrum to the elegiac music which is currently tickling my senses. Nunsense is a brassy Vaudevillian review show with tits, teeth and lashings of cheese. It felt a tad under-rehearsed and still needs to burst into life, which ought to happen when the actors feel confident enough with the material to claim it as their own. Performances needed to be bigger and bolder, although Nathan was excellent and I was very proud of him, particularly when he dusted off his diva vocals and slung them at the audience during the last song.

Pepys’ diary on this day in 1660 is neither revelatory nor particularly entertaining; very much like the entry I’m writing today! He met an old comrade and they drank a morning draft together whilst talking about dreams and ambitions. Later in the day Elizabeth caused slight concern by suggesting to Pepys that his bosses were beginning to bristle at his long absences from the office.

Some images are just too tragic. I found this poster attached to a tree in Highgate Village. Unfortunately something terrible has happened to the photograph of the cat, so all that's left is the missing image of a missing cat!

About Me

Composer and television director. Recent works include: A Symphony for Yorkshire (winner of 3 RTS Awards and a Prix de Circom), Tyne and Wear Metro: The Musical (winner of a Gillard award), The Pepys Motet, The London Requiem, Songs from Hattersley, A1: The Road Musical (nominated for a Grierson Award), Watford Gap: The Musical, Coventry Market: The Musical (nominated for a SONY award and recipient of two Gillard awards) and Oranges and Lemons, which features every bell in every London church mentioned in the nursery rhyme.